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Brands and businesses are using video, but few are realizing video’s true value as the ignition point of a targeted social media marketing campaign or, the spark. Likewise, many brands and companies are embracing social media but not getting as much out of the experience as they could. With a “videocentric” approach, video serves as the center of conversation from which layers of additional conversation evolve across social networking channels, blogs and forums often extending into traditional publications and beyond. This conversation goes from being

About the video

To being about the brand or business behind the video

To the products and services offered

To the fans of the brand

To the people behind the brand and so on…

As with any successful marketing effort, this requires proper planning and execution. I’ll explain how we attack the process at Supercool Creative, from start to finish and offer some fresh ways for marketing executives, brand managers and entrepreneurs to look at video as a crucial piece in the social media puzzle..

Step one is not “go shoot a video.” Too many campaigns fall flat or flat out fail because they start with a video and end with a plan of what to do with the video. That’s retrofitting and as you know, retrofitting can be more costly than doing something the right way the first time. We start off by establishing objectives that can be measured against hard goals like “more site traffic” and “increased sales” as well as soft goals like “more blog mentions, retweets and interviews.” Next, we identify the target audience. Who is the ideal customer and where are they online, right now? Then, we establish what the video will be about, what will be the bigger conversation surrounding that video and where and how that conversation will happen. The time to figure all that out is not after you have posted the video.

Content is king, be creative! The video should be engaging and above all SHAREABLE. Make it funny, shocking, quirky, confounding or whatever but be sure that it’s something worth talking about. The video itself is not and should not be enough to tell or sell the entire story. This is where a lot of marketers go wrong, packing too much into one video or making it into a commercial.

Online videos do not always require insane production value but they do need to be valuable. Three questions we ask before writing and shooting any video are

How will this video add value to peoples’ lives?

Should the video be funny or entertaining, shocking, controversial? Which genre if any will best fly with our client’s audience?

How likely will people be to share the video if given the opportunity? Basically, “why should somebody care about this video enough to watch it?”

After that, we outline and write the script then plan the shoot.

Unlike other forms of media including TV, radio, print and billboard, social media is not a broadcast channel intended to reach the masses but rather an interactive channel intended to mingle with the masses. As such, time and attention need to be given to setting up the right channels and building and maintaining relationships. Is the client’s audience mostly on Facebook? LinkedIn? YouTube? Twitter? How much time does the client have to spend on social media marketing each week? These factors will help determine which and how many channels are selected and developed.

One last thing to consider before locking down a video shoot is integration. Will the video be part of a larger marketing strategy including TV, radio, banner, video pre-roll, website integration, PR? This is an important thing to consider, especially if we are working with multiple agencies including traditional, interactive and PR agencies. As with retrofitting, integration is much easier and more cost effective the first time around.

Shoot and edit the video, including pre-production, casting, crewing up and executing according to the script and objectives. After post production, the video is encoded for the places it will live online for a very long time. To establish the video as the originating medium, we upload to YouTube and several other selected video sharing sites. Video search optimization is very important at this point so research is always key.

Now, we have a video link or two to work with. Just a few of things we do to help that link see the light of day include sharing the video with the client’s new YouTube community, inviting new friends, emailing the link, posting the video story and a link on Twitter; embedding the video on Facebook sparking conversation whenever possible; posting the link on LinkedIn status updates and starting a few discussions based on the bigger story surrounding the video.

The final step is to start building a genuine conversation surrounding the video. Outreach is a very important part of this process and includes reaching out to relevant influencers, launching local, topical and/or industry related press releases and contacting relevant online and offline publications. Just be sure that the story is compelling, the video is engaging and the product or service is sincere.

David Murdico is the Executive Creative Director of Supercool Creative, a Los Angeles based agency specializing in online video creative & production, viral marketing and integrated social media campaigns.

Video monetization is key! This post is specifically for those individuals looking to edit their own videos. Whether you’re using Windows Movie Maker, Final Cut or Adobe Premiere Pro, it is annoying to convert files from one format to another. If you are new to the video space, this post is for you. I spent 30 minutes looking for “free” software that actually works. Hopefully you found this post in less time than that. Also, for all of you FLIP VIDEO USERS out there, you’ll notice that Adobe Premiere Pro doesn’t support the .avi file format. You need to convert your file to .mov first. So this article is especially important for you…

Question How to convert avi to mov ? Can QuickTime Player do this? Or other tools?

Answer: Yes, Quicktime can export files to .mov format, but that only works for Quicktime Pro which is $29.95. Instead of pushing you to illegally download pirated software, you can convert avi to mov using free Oxelon Media Converter.

With windows explorer integration, drag and drop functionality and multiple file formats, this program can handle quite the load. And the best part? IT’S FREE!

Sony and The Onion pull it off once again! Their revolutionary new product has been called “The biggest f***ing waste of your hard earned money to come along in years!” (TheOnion) The video speaks for itself. (Mind you, there is explicit content, so not exactly for minors):

As usual, my Friday blogging habbits seem to lead towards a selected “Viral Video”…which leads me to my 4th “VIRAL VIDEO OF THE DAY”…but at the same time I totally got sucked into Reuters YouTube Posting covering Michael Phelps and his Marketing success.

Michael Phelps is a “Marketing Dream” to companies like Speedo, AT&T, and Visa. He earns $5mm a year in endorsements, but can expect more post-Olympics. But none of this could happen without the Marketing Magic behind Phelps, Octagon.

Want a little humor? Well, according to the Video above, VISA immediately launched a commercial congratulated Phelps on the most metals in Olympic History, yet the marketing firm behind Phelps hasn’t seemed to update their own web-site: http://www.octagon.com/worldwide-overview/athletes-and-personalities. Check it out…they still have him down for “8”. Looks like VISA was a step ahead 😉

…Now that’s some good Blogging right there! As for Phelps, have fun buddy!